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Introduction

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A gang is a group of people, usually youths, who share a common identity and commit crimes together. All gangs have some level of organization, and some have strong leadership and formal rules. A gang typically identifies itself by adopting a name and by using certain symbols. The goals of a gang often include increasing the power of the group, gaining control of territory and defending it, and making money. These groups are also called street gangs or youth gangs. These labels help to distinguish gangs from the more highly structured criminal groups known as organized crime.

Membership and Activities

Anthony Pleva/Alamy

Gangs are most common in large cities and the suburbs surrounding them, but they also exist in smaller cities and rural areas. Many large cities have a long history of gang activity. In contrast, few small cities or rural areas experienced gang problems before the 1990s. Gangs normally originate in poor neighborhoods, where the chances of legitimate success in life may seem out of reach. Young people in such neighborhoods often face social and economic disadvantages that push them toward gang life. Gang members are more likely than other youths to come from broken homes and to perform poorly in school. They are often unemployed and have peers who take part in criminal activity.

According to a U.S. government survey of law enforcement agencies, there were about 30,000 gangs and 850,000 gang members in the United States in the early 2010s. Nearly half of all gang members are Hispanic, about one-third are African American, and about one-tenth are white. More than 90 percent of gang members are male, and the majority are adults (age 18 or older). The percentage of adult gang members is highest in large cities, where gangs have been established the longest. Gangs tend to be self-perpetuating because they continually recruit younger members.

A gang creates a culture of its own. That culture is meant to separate the group from rival gangs and from society as a whole. A gang might wear clothing of a certain color or style or display unique symbols in tattoos and graffiti. Gang members also might use distinctive language or hand signals.

Gang activities typically focus on expanding the group’s power or making money. The most common crime committed by gangs is selling drugs. Gangs also are responsible for many violent crimes, including assaults, robberies, drive-by shootings, and homicides. They use threats to intimidate people—sometimes even police officers—from identifying them or testifying against them in court. Gangs sometimes form alliances with each other if it serves their own interest—for example, if it will allow them to expand their drug sales. On the other hand, gangs often have violent confrontations with each other over drug sales, territory (called “turf”), or other issues. A major influence on gang activity in the 2000s and 2010s was the rise of social media such as Facebook and Twitter. Gangs use social media to communicate with each other, to attack rivals, and to recruit new members.

History

Gang behavior may be more universal and ancient than is commonly thought. In some ancient societies, groups of young people took part in activities that were very similar to those of gangs today. The speeches of the Roman orator Cicero, for example, refer to armed bands of young men who engaged in fights and disrupted Roman politics for years. Violent street gangs also existed in the 17th and 18th centuries. Descriptions of youth gangs in England during this period note that gangs destroyed property and committed various forms of theft and robbery, along with extortion and rape. In the early 1700s the streets of London, England, were terrorized by a gang known as the Mohocks.

Gangs flourished in the American colonies. During the American Revolution, violent street gangs in Boston allied themselves with the patriot leadership. This pattern of alliance between criminals and politicians would characterize the history of American gangs well into the 20th century. In the 1800s gangs began to play a role in the organizations called political machines, which came to dominate government in New York, Chicago, and other American cities. In these organizations, gangs served to intimidate political opponents and to get out the vote. They also recruited future leaders for both politics and the criminal underworld.

Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

From the 19th century onward, gangs in the United States were most active in large cities. Philadelphia had more than 100 street gangs in 1870. Chicago had more than 1,000 gangs in the 1920s. Often, gangs formed to defend the interests of ethnic groups new to an area. Therefore, the most visible and violent gangs in each period had their roots in the latest wave of immigration. For example, Irish gangs were common in the United States in the mid-19th century, followed by Jewish gangs in the early 20th century.

Gangs largely faded in the United States during the Great Depression and World War II, but they reemerged in the late 1950s. At that time, as in the past, the main goal of a gang was to protect its turf from outsiders. Beginning in the 1980s, however, American gangs took on a new focus—making money through illegal drug sales. As gangs grew rich from drug dealing, they gained a permanence and structure that earlier youth gangs did not have. Members tended to remain in the gangs well beyond youth because gangs had become mainly business organizations.

Gangs also became much more violent as they battled for control of local drug markets. Crime statistics in the 2000s and 2010s suggested that gangs were responsible for about 15 percent of the homicides committed in the United States. Most of these homicides occurred in the largest cities, particularly Chicago and Los Angeles.

Significant gang activity also has taken place in Great Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, and France, as well as in Russia and the countries of eastern and central Europe. Across the globe, youth gangs exist wherever there are cities, and they are often linked to adult organized-crime syndicates. In the late 20th century, gangs appeared in Africa and Latin America. Gangs in Asia—particularly the Tongs, the Chinese Triads, and various secret societies—can be linked to similar groups in the United States. (See alsojuvenile delinquency.)

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